It takes twenty years to become an overnight success.–Eddie Cantor

In his book, Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell describes the 10,000 Hour Rule as a reason why some people become successful. This rule is based on a study that was conducted by Anders Ericsson.  The study illustrated that those who became successful in their given field had practiced it for a total of 10,000 hours prior to being discovered.

10,000 hours to master any skill.  That’s a lot of time.  If you spent 3 hours a day, for almost every day of the year, it would take you a decade to master a skill.

One of the most humbling parts of my journey into exercise thus far has been the realization that I’ve just started traveling a long and winding road.   I’ve logged about 50 hours of exercising thus far; only 9,500 to go….

For me, it’s important to think in terms of these countless hours for two reasons:

First, it reminds me to be gentle on myself.  Athleticism is something that doesn’t come naturally to me.  I’m not immediately proficient at any exercise my trainer gives me to do.  I have to remind myself that just because I’m not good at what I’m trying, doesn’t mean that I can’t be.  Spend 10,000 hours practicing anything, you’re bound to get pretty good!  Meanwhile, I try to accept looking bad for many, many hours in order to eventually look good.

Secondly, by thinking in terms of a decade (or more) of dedicated practice, I’m able to approach exercise as a long-term strategy, a lifestyle change.  This is not The Biggest Loser.  I haven’t seen radical “instant” results in my first few weeks of training.  Unlike my past efforts, this isn’t a frantic push to lose weight for a special event, this is the steady adaptation of new behaviors that I will have to sustain for a lifetime.

Dr. Robert Moffett of Acupuncture Associates once told me that ‘fixing’ a health problem via a natural healing art like acupuncture usually takes as long as the amount of time it took for the problem to develop.  In other words, there is no ‘magic pill’.  Using that principle as a guideline, when it comes to exercise, the 10,000 hour rule makes a lot of sense.   It took years for my body to reach its current weight and current state.  It’s going to take a while for it to change again.

In Outliers, Gladwell uses the example of The Beatles, who practiced for 10,000 hours prior to becoming famous.  One of my favorite Beatles songs is When I’m Sixty-Four.    If I exercise just a little more than an hour a day for the next twenty-six years, I’ll peak at my 10,000 hours of practice at exactly that age.  Imagine that.